It is often desirable to uniquely label or identify items, such as large or small objects, plants, and/or animals for sorting, tracking, identification, verification, authentication, or for other purposes. Existing technologies, such as bar codes, electronic microchips/transponders, radio-frequency identification (RFID), and fluorescence (or other optical techniques), are often inadequate. For example, existing technologies may be too large for certain applications, may not provide enough different codes, cannot be made flexible or bendable, or cannot withstand harsh environments, e.g., harsh temperature, pressure, chemical, nuclear and/or electromagnetic environments.
It is also been a problem in the pharmaceutical industry to have counterfeit drugs be produced causing loss of security, traceability, and safety in the drug supply.
Therefore, it would be desirable to obtain a labeling technique that provides the capability of providing many codes (e.g., greater than 1 million codes), that can be made very small, can be made flexible or bendable, and/or that can withstand harsh environments.